


Trackers

by BethCGPhoenix



Category: Heroes - Fandom, Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Big Bang Challenge, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-21
Updated: 2008-09-21
Packaged: 2017-10-14 08:01:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BethCGPhoenix/pseuds/BethCGPhoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mohinder's finally found his list. Too bad it's not documenting what he thinks it is -- and too bad he's not the only one who wants to get ahold of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2008 Heroes BigBoom challenge. A huge thank you to Aspen for betaing/hand-holding/fixing my laptop when it crashed three days before rough drafts were due (seriously, she is the Ultimate Kickass Super Beta), Esther for cheerleading, Lynne for characterization checking, and the BigBoom mods for getting me to finish something that I thought I'd never see finished. Almost two years after the plot bunny bit me, this sucker's finally done. WOO! \o/

> >> PETER PETRELLI: NEW YORK, NY

 _Peter's the first to have the dreams._

 _"No, listen to me, Nathan," he says to his brother at his campaign headquarters the next morning, grabbing at his sleeve with frantic urgency. Nathan stops, but only long enough to fix him with a long-suffering glare. Peter doesn't notice. "This is important. Please."_

 _"Right," he answers flatly. "Pete, I'm not your personal shrink, I've got work to do -- "_

 _He shakes off Peter's hand, only to have him grab hold again._

 _"This is my destiny," he says, and his eyes are fever-bright. "He told me so."_

 _"The man in your dreams."_

 _"Yeah."_

 _Nathan's annoyance remains plain, up until Peter describes the man's eyes. Then it takes forty minutes to reorganize the sheaf of papers he drops all over the campaign floor._

* * *

When Mohinder Suresh leaves his apartment, his possessions break down as follows: four sets of clothing, two pairs of shoes, sixteen notebooks with as much research as he could transcribe from his father's notes and maps, three tins of tea (the only indulgence he allows himself), his laptop computer, and two sheets of paper printed with neat columns of thirty-six names and addresses. Everything but the last goes into the trunk and back seat of a leased car he still doesn't know how he'll afford on a taxi driver's salary. The papers, he tucks into the inside pocket of his jacket before he turns the key and backs out of the lot.

Thirty-six. It shouldn't come across as such a daunting number, but he finds himself paralyzed by the decision of where to start when he pulls into a rest stop and unfolds the list. It's true that many of the addresses are just a city -- sometimes even no more than a state -- which provides some help in narrowing down his choices; yet each name also offers opportunity, a chance that could impact how he views the others, and, with the danger of Sylar overhead, an uncomfortable sense of claiming one life to have more value than another. How could proceeding alphabetically or by location possibly take those into account?

In the end, he settles -- after glancing over one shoulder in slight embarrassment, half-expecting the spectre of the entire scientific community to take notice and deride him -- for spreading the pages on the dashboard, closing his eyes, and jabbing his finger at them.

And of course the name he'd finally select would be a college student with no permanent address.

The last known place of residence leads him to a charcoal-smeared apartment building gutted by fire months earlier. Mohinder has to check three times that it is indeed the right address before he can cushion his disappointment long enough to pull one of the neighbors aside. "Yeah, he's okay, but -- I don't know, I heard he took off on sabbatical with his brother," she tells him when he asks. "His girlfriend died in the fire. Something like that happens, I don't blame him for leaving, you know?"

"Did he tell anyone where he was going?"

She shrugs; he frowns and thanks her for her time. And Mohinder may be a scientist, but he is also an idealist, and so when he moves on, it's to the next neighbor rather than the next name. From there it's to newspapers and more maps, peppered with hearsay and vague eyewitness reports from motel staff, convenience store managers, and rest stop employees. Stitched together, the pieces form a sketch of a route -- a route that has an irritating, frustrating tendency to dead end without warning as it circles and weaves around itself like a drunkard stumbling across the country.

He'd say that it does so with no purpose, but that's before he looks over his notes while hunched up in a motel and realizes that it runs through almost every city he's marked out with a dot of yellow highlighter. (The pins and string, with no wall to match, were the first of his research methods to go.) The coincidence makes him wonder, in brief flashes while lingering in gas station lines or grocery stores, until it's superseded by another realization that this line doubles back on one place in particular with nearly four times the frequency as any of the others.

He supposes that's as close to permanent as he'll get.

By then it's been two and a half weeks since he left New York, and the road has scuffed up his shoes and rumpled his once neatly-pressed shirts. He doesn't entirely mind; this far from the city, it keeps him from standing out. Nevertheless, eleven heads raise in unison and fix him with wary and oddly defiant stares when he pushes open the door. Not the least among those watching is the woman tending the bar, whose greying-brown hair's been shoved back in a rough ponytail. The way she carries herself makes him think of someone taking sandpaper and scrubbing it across her until the color flaked away like old paint: the grey has to be born of hardness, not age.

"Can I help you?" the woman asks. She sets down the glass she's been polishing and leans one hand on her hip, the other against the bar.

Several tables over, something glints in the low light. Mohinder turns his head just enough to make out what it is, and it's only then that he becomes aware of it: half of these men -- perhaps more than half -- are armed with knives and guns and things he can't even recognize.

 _Dear God._

"Ah." He swallows, digging a hand into his pocket as he approaches. Some vain attempt at discretion keeps his voice low. "Yes, I hope you can. I'm trying to find a man named Samuel Winchester?"

Her mouth sets into a line as hard as her shoulders. "What do you want with Sam?"

He's extracted the papers by then and has been folding and unfolding them between his fingers, rhythmic and unthinking. Now, he smooths it flat against his palms. "I have reason to believe he may be in danger." When her expression remains immobile, "Please, I only want to speak with him -- "

"He's not here," she interrupts, "and frankly, I'd only be set to start thinking something was wrong if he _wasn't_ in some kind of trouble." Still, the tightness at the corners of her lips eases slightly. She tosses the ragged cloth down on the bartop and rests her arm across it. "I don't know when he'll be in next, but if you've got something to tell him, I can pass it along next time he's around."

Mohinder thinks of Nathan Petrelli's skepticism; of himself, in his darker moments, frustrated and disillusioned. He looks down at the list. "It's somewhat private," he admits, a self-deprecating quirk to his mouth, "and if I'm being honest, not something I think he'd be inclined to believe without proof."

"Like what?" She glances to the papers in his hands, up to him; then, with no further preamble, she stretches out her own hand and beckons with two fingers for him to hand them over. "Try me."

His head snaps up, the rest of him catching in a sudden net of nerves that squares his posture to match hers: challenge and caution all at once. Her eyebrows rise by a fraction. Down the length of the bar, the men who haven't gone back to their drinks turn away, a silent refusal to step between the two.

It's Mohinder who finally breaks the stalemate a few seconds later, his stance relaxing a degree.

"My father was a geneticist," he tells her. "He specialized in evolutionary theory -- or, to be more precise, human evolutionary theory. He believed we were in the midst of a global event, the next stage of human evolution, with certain individuals displaying abilities once thought to be impossible." He curls his fingers back, holding onto the papers with only the thumb and forefinger of each hand. "Through his research, he discovered a genetic marker and developed a list of individuals who might display that marker, and while there is a small margin of error..."

In lieu of finishing this sentence, he passes her the papers, with _SAMUEL WINCHESTER: 82 GREEN STREET APT #243, PALO ALTO, CA_ circled in smudged pencil. The woman plucks it out of his hand and keeps her attention fixed on him a minute longer before dropping it to the list. Left with little else to do, Mohinder grasps the edge of the bar. The patina of spilled drinks long dry sticks to his fingertips.

"I'm trying to locate them," he continues. "To tell them -- "

"Scott Carey," she cuts him off in a low mutter, flipping to the next page. "Max Miller, Andrew Gallagher...you've gotta be kidding me. How the _hell'd_ he -- "

"I'm sorry?"

She folds over the list, looks him square in the eye, and sighs. The flinty edge to her has long dissolved; she looks now, if anything, weary at the sight of Mohinder's confusion. Pitying, nearly.

"Damn," she says, and shakes her head. "You've really got no idea what you're dealing with, do you."


	2. Chapter 2

> >> ISAAC MENDEZ: NEW YORK, NY

 _Every day, Simone receives the same shopping list. It never has any food on it. What it does have is a list of oils: bismuth yellow, marigold, cadmium lemon, ochre._

 _She buys food anyway, sets it on top of the paints, and gives it to Isaac along with frustrated pleas to_ eat something, for God's sake. __

 _"God?" He laughs bleakly. "Simone, God's got nothing to do with this."_

 _"What are you talking about?"_

 _He turns away with no answer, stalking to the next room. Simone follows, not bothering to hide her exasperation. "Isaac -- "_

 _The canvases he's hung on every inch draw her up short._

 _Unable to breathe, she covers her mouth with one hand and stares at the eyes patterned over and over the walls._

* * *

Ellen keeps a small handful of rooms upstairs. They aren't usually meant for patrons, but Mohinder's offer of sixty dollars is good enough to earn him a bed. Not that he expects to get much sleep; not after she buys him a beer ("'cause you're sure as hell gonna need it," she says), sits him down, and tells him how the codons his father spent his life tracking signify something else entirely.

"This is preposterous," he tries to say, only to be cut off with another eyebrow raise that speaks volumes: _And what you're looking for isn't?_

"I know some of these kids," she says as she taps a finger against his list. "Sam and Dean're looking for them too. Hell, so're half the folks in here; Gordon Walker got himself arrested trying to gun Sam down a week ago 'cause of it. You got any idea how many of them'd give their left nuts for a list like this?"

"How many of whom?"

"The hunters."

There's a pause before he echoes it back to her, listening to how it lingers in the air. "Hunters." Like dogs, or rabid animals -- he thinks it's a poor choice of words, certainly enough to make his own hackles rise. "That's what they do?"

"That's what they all do, Doc. Almost everybody who ever comes through here except me, Ash, and Jo."

"And Sam Winchest -- "

"Him too," she finishes, the sympathy leaching out of her gaze to reveal the sharpness that has never been far away. "And his brother. Their daddy, too, before he passed." She swallows a mouthful of her own beer. "You see it a lot. That kind of job likes to run in families. Like genetics, huh?"

The genetics of mutation, or blood lines; the genetic studies that he gravitated toward just as his own father did. Mohinder's wry smile matches hers. "I suppose you could say that."

The door behind them rattles as someone enters, or perhaps exits. Neither one pays attention. Mohinder's eyes travel down the list as he curves a palm against his glass -- still three-quarters full, for he remembered after a few mouthfuls of the rank, bitter alcohol why he's always disliked beer so much.

"My grandmother would tell me stories, back in India," he says. _Matthew Parkman: Los Angeles, CA. Hiro Nakamura: Tokyo, Japan. Ava Wilson: Peoria, IL._ "I won't deny that they played some sort of formative role in my life and shaped how I perceive the world, but I..." He forces himself to look back up at Ellen, who watches him with a calm impassivity. Her expression hits against the crack of desperation in his voice. "They were only stories."

"Let me guess: and you think that means they can't be true?"

"I," he begins again, but Ellen cuts him off.

"Look, Mohinder, I could be wrong about this. You get down to it, it's pretty damn likely I am. But we've got a couple short lists of our own around here, and the way you're sitting here talking about these people..." She shakes her head. "You got that saying about ducks in India?"

He frowns. "Ducks?"

"If it walks like one, and it talks like one, then it -- "

" -- must be a duck, yes, I've heard of that," he finishes in near unison with her, chuckling briefly in spite of himself. "Though it's not something I've heard particularly often."

"Yeah, well. That doesn't mean it isn't true, either." She finishes off her beer. "I can't let you stay more than a night or people'll think it's open season on boarders again. But lemme get you a key. You'll have to share the bathroom down here, so if you've got a problem with that, maybe you'd be better off somewhere else."

"No. I've no problem with it." It's a roof overhead that doesn't come attached to a car, and a mattress, however thin, that's much better than none at all. Ellen nods her satisfaction before sliding off of her barstool to disappear into a back room. Soon after, he's escorted up a narrow staircase with thin boards that squeak at the faintest pressure; he tries to tread quietly, but gives up when he sees Ellen move with no concern for the noise she makes.

"Checkout's at eight," she says, pushing open the door at the top of the stairs. "Sleep well, Mohinder."

Even after he thanks her and shuts the door, Mohinder can still hear the quiet rumblings of the Roadhouse seep up through the floorboards.

Being removed from it helps, however. It mutes his thoughts the same way the door muffles the noise, allowing him to push Ellen's explanation flat and wrench it back into objectivity. He has no reason to believe her, no reason to accept anything she says. A desire to find Mr. Winchester shouldn't be enough to follow any lead he stumbles upon, especially one so misguided as this.

And no matter what else, Mohinder thinks with equal parts bitterness and pride, he is still his father's son.

He turns away. A long crack zigzags across the floor, disappearing beneath his cot -- it can't be called a proper bed -- and packed with what almost looks like chunks of salt. Frowning, he rubs the toe of his shoe along it, then tips his foot back to scrape his heel over the same spot. Bits of salt escape the crack; Mohinder only pauses for a moment before nudging them back into place.

Then, with a sigh, he drops his bag at the foot of the cot, leans back along the mattress length, and passes a hand over his face as he closes his eyes.

He's awakened several hours later by a sharp knock at the door. It takes several tries before he can focus on his wristwatch: 5:46 AM, it reads. "Yes?" he calls, voice still thick and blurry from sleep.

No one responds. Thoughts still moving sluggishly, but beginning to sharpen as the seconds tick upward to 28, 29, 30, Mohinder's forehead creases. It seems unlike Ellen to stay silent, for as little as he may know her; he pushes a hand through his hair in a vain attempt to straighten it before swinging his feet to the ground. The entire room feels incongruously warm, and his toes slip as he pads to the door, turns the handle and pulls it open a crack.

A young man stands on the other side, hair shaved down to a reddish stubble and one elbow propped against the doorframe. His well-worn clothes are covered in pockets and hang loose and half-folded from his body; around one thumb, he turns a gold ring in a ceaseless circle. When he sees the sliver of light appear, he glances up at the curls of hair just above Mohinder's eyes.

Mohinder thinks he recognizes him from the night before. All the same, his frown deepens. "Yes," he repeats, clearer this time. "Can I help you?"

The man shrugs without loosening himself from the doorframe. "Ellen wanted you out by six," he says, twisting the ring off and seamlessly transporting it to his other thumb, like a magician performing a sleight of hand.

Mohinder watches the light glint off the ring, and is reminded, for an instant, of knives and guns tucked flush against the bar tables. "When I spoke to her," he says, "I believe she said I'd have to leave by eight."

"Nah. Six." Another sideways slip of the ring, this time to his left middle finger. Just as seamless, he slips the topic sideways: "You're a civilian, right?"

 _Civilian._ It's no better a choice of vocabulary than _hunter;_ Mohinder doesn't move. "Yes, I suppose you could call it that. I'm a scientist. Not a, ah...hunter."

The man nods, less in acknowledgment than confirmation of some unstated fact. "Thought so." He takes off the ring entirely and turns it over between his fingers, wholly absorbed in the task. "Ellen took a pretty good shine to you."

"Yes, speaking of Ellen -- " Unconsciously, Mohinder does move now, just enough to block a little more of the gap between door and doorframe. Vague unease prickles the back of his neck. "May I ask why she didn't come wake me up herself?"

"Hey. Busy bar." He shrugs. "It's not like she's got the time to play babysitter, right?" He flips the ring back onto his index finger before lifting his chin toward the room beyond Mohinder. "Need help?"

"Thank you, but I believe I can handle it on my own." A touch wry, "I packed fairly light."

The man nods again, just once, then rears back and slams his foot into the door just below the knob. The handle punches into Mohinder's stomach just below the ribs. He doubles over, staggering back three steps, and gasps for air as red stars speckle his vision. The door bangs against the wall.

Seconds later, the young man has him in a headlock with a knife resting cold and sharp against his neck.

"I heard you talking last night," he says, as calm and low as if he were still standing outside of the room. "You've got a list, right? Of all those kids?"

" _What?_ " Mohinder chokes, and the blade digs a little deeper for his troubles.

"Where is it?"

"I am not -- " _Catering to the whims of a superstitious madman_ is how he plans to finish that sentence, Ellen's charity and explanations be damned, but it's throttled off by the feel of something warm and wet sliding down his neck: blood, as the knife digs a quarter inch deeper. Mohinder wheezes, hands clamped around the other man's arm. He weighs his options, comes to a decision, and tells him, "My bag. It's in my bag. Let me get it for you. There's a lock on it -- "

The edge of the knife depresses and the headlock weakens. "All right," says the hunter, still in that too-calm voice; he gestures with the knife, a faint damp red shining on its edge. Mohinder's hand goes to his throat, feeling out the wound. It's not very deep, and the bleeding's not profuse enough to be an emergency.

"Thank you," he croaks, gingerly picking his way across the room to his bag. The hunter spins the knife around in his hand, blade to handle to blade to handle, and watches closely. Mohinder does his best to ignore him as he leans over his bag and takes hold of the strap.

There's no lock. He has one chance, perhaps less than, and he doesn't hesitate as he swings the bag like a club into the side of the hunter's head.

Loose papers and incomplete research explode around them. The hunter stumbles back, stunned, and Mohinder wastes no time in scrambling through the door, hastily shouldering his bag as he does and keeping one hand over the cut on his neck.

He bolts through the Roadhouse, ignoring the few stragglers around him. The bag careens from side to side like a pendulum; he stumbles, nearly falls, regains his balance, and keeps running. He doesn't look back as he throws himself into his car and fires up the engine.

It isn't until he's fifteen miles away and no longer trembling with adrenaline that Mohinder checks his bag, and finds that the second page of the list is missing.


	3. Chapter 3

> >> MATTHEW PARKMAN: LOS ANGELES, CA

 _"Mr. Kubrick's looking for you," says Audrey without looking up from her paperwork._

 _Matt pauses midway through crumpling up his Big Mac wrapper. "Who?"_

 _"Mr. Kubrick." She looks up. "Came by while you were out, said you were old friends, he had an important message?"_

 _"I've never heard that name before in my life."_

 _Audrey's look sharpens. "Then who the hell is he? And why's he looking for you?"_

 _"Good question," Matt mutters, and settles in at his desk, ignoring the wash of thoughts around him._

 _Most of them are familiar. One of them, he realizes, isn't: chanting, like a prayer, in a foreign language weighted by years and cathedrals. He looks up out the window just in time to see an RV roll out of the parking lot._

* * *

Ten days later, Ellen is slamming her towel down on the bar and snapping, "I hear one more word about the Goddamn Suresh list and I'll throw you out on your ass, you understand?"

In reply, Jo, chin jutted forward, her own towel looped through her belt, folds her arms like a tightly-drawn restraint and glares. "Mom, this has got to be the biggest thing that's come through here since I was born," she snaps right back. "It's all anybody's talking about. You can't seriously expect me to just sit back and ignore -- "

"Joanna Beth, there are enough people in here looking to pick off these kids over something none of us get yet, and I am not gonna have you joining in like you think you got any more of a clue than the rest of us, _is that clear?_ " Her hand stays on the towel, curled tight like talons. "You are still my daughter, you are still in my bar, and these are still my rules. Now. Table eight's got an order in for a pitcher, so I suggest you go get that for 'em. All right?"

Jo's mouth twists. Her arms stay locked around herself as she turns, wordless and furious, to move behind the bar. At table eight -- a space well away from the main bar with several empty glasses speckling the tabletop -- two hunters argue in hushed voices, three sheets of creased paper between them.

"Look, all I'm saying is that from what I heard, it was handwritten," says the first. He tries to smooth out the center sheet. "Two pages. This one's typed and half the names don't even -- "

"It's the real deal," the other insists.

The first shoots him a look as swift and pointed as a knife blade. "Miles, you'd better hope you're not calling me a liar."

In a sudden fluster, Miles hurries to backtrack. "Did I say that?" he says, lifting both hands in a gesture as warding as it is acquiescing. "I didn't say anything like that. Facts, though, yeah, they get mixed up, I mean, Ellen and Andre are the only two who talked to him and Ellen sure as hell ain't saying a word."

The first rummages in one pocket and produces another scrap; he adds it to the others, spinning it around to allow Miles a good look. "Here's the copy I got from Steve Wandell -- "

"For how much?"

He flashes a grin. "Like I'm telling you that. But look, yours's got half the names spelled wrong. Mandez? That's not..."

A singleminded ratcheting drowns out their next words. Several tables over, Eli Williams finishes dismantling his rifle and pauses long enough to check the sight against a far wall. A glass of his own remains untouched at the table's far corner, bought as a perfunctory action when he walked in. Condensation dribbles and pools into a ring around it.

As he picks up a cloth to run along the barrel, one hand falls loose and palm up against the table top. A clean-cut woman in ragged jeans passes by; without exchanging eye contact, she presses a scrap of paper into the crease of his palm and continues on. Eli makes no acknowledgment of his own until he curls his fingers around the paper, sets down the cloth, and flicks up one corner to read.

 _MINE,_ is all it says at the top, with three names beneath it: _D. Smither, N. Sanders, Z. Taylor._ Eli nods his satisfaction and tears a neat line through the middle of the note, folding the scraps in half once he's finished.

"Night, Ellen. 'Scuse me," the woman adds as she brushes past a man who's paused on the threshold of the Roadhouse. The noise of thunder and pounding rain leaks into the bar as she opens the door, silenced just as quickly once she shuts it behind her. The man notices neither the woman, the rain, nor the fact that his clothes have been soaked by it; hands in his pockets and hat tugged low, his attention wanders from person to person for a full thirty seconds before he steps closer to the main bar.

Ellen has started to eye him well before that, her hands deftly moving over the hanging rack to pull down a set of wineglasses. "What can I get you?" she asks, though it sounds far closer to, _Is there a problem I ought to be fixing here?_

The man's attention ticks to her and stays, immobile, as he cants his head slightly toward one side. Then he's smiling abrupt and all at once, and if it weren't for the way the smile showed up like flicking a light switch, it'd do a damn good job of passing for friendly.

"No. Nothing, at the moment," he says, tipping the damp brim of his baseball cap back. "But thank you. I may take you up on that later."

Ellen regards him for another long beat before she nods, more curt than she's been around new blood in the past, and goes back to retrieving the glasses. "All right," she says to the rack. "You just let me or Jo know."

"I'll do that." The friendliness doesn't leave his voice, but it takes on a curious, distant quality, as if he's just remembering that it should still be there. He turns away from her and treads further into the crowd, the smile vanishing as fast as it came; all the while, he keeps his head cocked at a faint angle, as if listening for something no one else can hear.

A minute later, Eli looks up from his gun when the chair across from him slides out. The stranger deposits himself in it and tugs it closer. Eli's eyes narrow in response.

"Seat's taken," he tells him, in a slow and measured voice that brims with suspicion. He sets down the rifle; it clanks, muted.

Before the sound even seems to finish, the stranger has one hand folded over the rifle barrel. The scrutiny in his gaze is as thoughtful as it is intense; he doesn't break eye contact. Eli, for a moment, finds himself pinned by it, like the man's hand is around his throat instead of the gun.

"Yes. It is," he agrees calmly once he's certain he has Eli's attention. He flicks his wrist to release the rifle and send it skittering back toward Eli. "Eli Williams, right?"

Eli presses a protective hand over the weapon. "Normally," he says, "I don't answer to that unless I know who's doing the asking."

The man gives the considering nod of one who's been presented with a fair point. When he flashes a smile, there's little amiability to it; amiable smiles, Eli thinks, don't show that much teeth. "Drew O'Grady," he tells him.

"Haven't seen you around before."

"I haven't been around before." It's spoken like an afterthought, his eyes wandering to a spot just to Eli's left before jumping back. "But," and he leans in closer, "I was told you're the one I should speak to. About this...list. The Suresh List, I believe you're calling it?"

By now, Eli's become used to this. He sighs. "The only copy I've got left is my personal one. I can't -- "

Drew cuts him off. "May I see it?" he asks, in a manner that implies it's not a request at all.

Eli's grip goes a bit tighter on the rifle. "Why?"

One corner of Drew's mouth curls, faint but unmistakably sharp. If it was barely a smile before, this expression is even less of one. "For the same reason as you," he says, almost amused, then casually amends, "If you see them as being as much of a threat as I do. That _is_ why, isn't it? You and the rest of the men and women here."

Eli frowns. "You're not a hunter," he states. It starts to peak up into a question before reconsidering and staying level.

"Oh, no, Eli," says Drew; the smirk widens the barest amount. "I'm very much a hunter. I just don't hunt in...packs, shall we say. Like the rest of you."

"What?"

"I've never found it efficient," he continues, as if he'd never been interrupted. "But, if that's how you prefer it..." He tips his head an inch to the other side. "We can help each other."

Eli takes this in, mulls it over. "I give you the list and you give me what?"

"My own information." Drew flattens both hands, feeling out the table, and leans closer. "You see, Eli," he murmurs. "I know Dr. Suresh. And I can promise you that no matter what list you show me, it won't be _nearly_ as complete as the ones I've seen."


	4. Chapter 4

> >> NATHAN PETRELLI: NEW YORK, NY

 _Fundraiser dinners, Nathan decides, have only two things going for them: the food and the campaign boost. Too bad he can't count on either; the shrimp at the end of the catered table is particularly vile tonight. Nathan discreetly empties his plate into the nearest trash can, picks up a glass of wine from a passing server, and makes a mental note to never hire these people again._

 _On the opposite side of the room, Peter's squirming in his suit like a little kid on a church pew, trying to juggle his own plate and drink. Nathan suppresses an eye roll when he spots him. What he probably ought to do is go over and try to talk down his brother from whatever unease he's worked himself into this time, but frankly, he's had enough of that. Projecting a softer image is one thing. Playing his twenty-six year old sibling's keeper around the clock is something else altogether._

 _Speaking of -- Nathan pulls back his sleeve to check his watch. They're down to five minutes until he takes the podium. The notecards starch the inside of his pocket jacket, unnoticeable but mildly uncomfortable anyway; he'll be glad to toss them out when he's done with this._

 __Probably shouldn't be using them anyway, _he thinks._ Don't want to look like I can't even remember my own damn talking points. __

 _"Mr. Petrelli?"_

 _Nathan turns around at the unfamiliar voice. It belongs to an older gentleman with a wide, honest face, smiling a hopeful smile that creases up the corners of his eyes. Nathan's never seen him before in his life, and he returns the smile as if they've known each other for years. "Yes, hi," he answers. "Glad you could make it toni -- "_

 _The man doesn't stop smiling as he lifts a handgun and fires one round into Nathan's stomach._

 _The shockwave of sound rocks the entire room like a physical blow, attendees flinching as one, some dropping their plates or glasses as they whip toward the noise. For a suspended heartbeat, nobody moves or speaks, too stunned to move._

 _Then it breaks with a delicate shatter as Nathan's wineglass hits the floor, and with a much larger crash as he collapses against the table._

 _Screams erupt. People surge toward him. Peter screams the loudest -- "NATHAN!" -- and moves the fastest, shoving other guests aside hard enough for them to stumble as he runs to Nathan's side. "Nathan," he repeats, more a sob than a name, before he spins around and yells, "SOMEBODY CALL 911!"_

 _Dazed, Nathan's hand opens and closes on nothing as he spits up a mouthful of blood. Peter drops to his knees and clamps both hands over the wound, either not seeing the blood on his own suit or ignoring it entirely. "You're gonna be okay, Nathan," he tells his brother, as Nathan's eyes unfocus and the ceiling swims above him. "You'll be okay."_

* * *

" -- breaking news update: Republican congressional candidate Nathan Petrelli was shot today in an apparent assassination attempt during a campaign fundraiser. Petrelli, thirty-eight, was airlifted to New York Presbyterian Hospital in critical condition after sustaining a single gunshot wound to the stomach. Investigation is pending into how the would-be assassin managed to enter the facilities undetected; authorities are also conducting a full-scale search for the perpetrator, who escaped the scene without being detained. ABC News now goes live to..."

Mohinder has one hand tucked under his elbow, a paper fisted and slowly crumpling under his grip. The other is pressed to his mouth, knuckles peaked white as he watches the news report.

He owns more copies of the list besides the printed one; there are back-ups on his laptop (currently open and whirring softly on the dingy motel bed), others on a small portable thumb drive stowed inside a hidden pocket of his bag. Nathan Petrelli, he knows, is on page two.

The paper continues to crumple, and Mohinder is struck by a sudden, crazed desire to throw his computer through the window, smash the thumb drive under the wheel of his car, rip his maps in half in penance for the sixteen individuals he failed. By stepping into the Roadhouse, he has called up worse than demons, or -- as the drumbeat of his grandmother's voice pounds dully against the back of his head -- worse than Kali's vengeance for his lack of belief: he has called up men with no room for rational thought, only an obsession to see their insane will be done.

It's an impulse he understands far better than he'd like. His reasons may be far more noble, but he has thought of nothing but his research since running his fingers through the strings drawn taut across his father's map.

 _Correlation is not causation,_ he tells himself, sternly, and still feels sick to his stomach as he turns off the TV.

With the luxury of taking his time now gone, Mohinder works even more quickly that night. He leaves early enough in the morning for it to count as obscene, the better to reach the Minnesota border by midafternoon; Grand Rapids, the home of one Sue Landers -- and not to be confused, he learned, with the other Grand Rapids two states away -- is the next closest town on the list. Once a "MINNESOTA WELCOMES YOU" sign flashes by, another two hundred miles pass before a placard declaring the Grand Rapids city limits does the same.

A paper plant dominates what passes for the city's downtown landscape, scenting the air with dry, clean wood and a faint tinge of chemicals. Mohinder's legs and stomach ache from the drive; his stomach even more so when he starts to park at the nearest diner and feels his gut curl up on itself in self-defense. There have been too many plates of French fries on this journey already. After a moment's reconsideration, he chooses a grocery store instead.

With a small salad wedged next to his bag in the front seat, Mohinder opens his laptop to double-check the address before he sets off. The roads tend to meander the farther he gets from the paper plant, all buildings quickly disappearing under bands of birchwood and evergreen. When he finally finds the address, he's forced to ease the car down a gravelly road with large patches of grass pushing up between the tread lines. Far away, a loon trills and whistles, oddly mournful; Mohinder rolls up his window and switches on the radio.

It's a beautiful house, he has to admit. Twenty yards behind it, the land drops off into a sharply-defined shoreline; water stretches beyond that, smooth and calm. Wind rustles the overhead branches as he gets out of the car, bag slung over one shoulder. Aside from that, it's utterly silent.

To an unnerving degree, after so much time in New York and Madras.

"Hello?" he calls, half as much to alert the woman as to break the quiet. A motorboat engine dopplers in and out with a faint whine. Uneasy, Mohinder hikes the strap of his bag higher and steps closer to the house. "Miss Landers?"

Perhaps she's out. (Doing what in this small a town, he thinks a bit wryly, he can't imagine.) One hand still on the strap of his bag, Mohinder knocks, twice, and repeats his call. "Hello?"

Still nothing. And it isn't the marked contrast between urban and rural that's begun to tip the hair on his arms upright: it's the memory of the newscaster speaking with such calm gravitas, and the inset of Mr. Petrelli's face on the television screen.

On the third knock, Mohinder pauses, breathes to steady himself, and smells copper in the air. The back of his throat seizes around it, holds fast, and knots so tightly that it ripples down into an icy nausea. With the care of handling a delicate, breakable object, Mohinder tests the knob. It's unlocked. He nudges open the door with his fingertips and eases inside.

Three steps in, he sees the woman splayed across the foyer. Her chest gapes wide and bloody, her filmy blue eyes rolled back in her head. A tendril of blood, oozing lazily across the wood floor, uncurls and touches the tip of Mohinder's shoe.

He chokes, yanking his foot back as he stares in horror. More blood drips from the thin spray on the closest wall.

Mohinder doesn't bother to check if the killer is still there. He simply whirls around, and runs for the car.


	5. Chapter 5

> >> CLAIRE BENNET: ODESSA, TX

 _Her dad gets in the habit of switching off the TV whenever there's a report about that congressional candidate who got shot. He doesn't explain why, unless you count a mild, "You don't need to see that, Claire-bear," as an explanation. Claire doesn't._

 _Three days after the shooting, he bundles the entire family into their SUV and starts driving. Claire knows he won't explain the gun she saw him stash under the driver's seat, either._

 _Angry at him for lying, angry at herself for not asking, she pulls her jacket tighter and watches the yellow turn signals in front of them blink on and off like a memory._

* * *

Eli doesn't tally his kills on his weapons like some hunters he knows. There's no need: the marks end up there anyway, in haphazard scratches raked up the knife blade and chips in the handle. Just because nobody else knows how to read them doesn't mean they don't serve their purpose just fine.

Drew's turning it over in his hands in quiet study when Eli steps out of the motel bathroom. "Hey," he snaps, catching up to the younger man's side in two quick paces. "I don't recall that being for sharing. Put it down."

Eyes on the knife, one finger tracing out a long scratch that's still rubbed deep with rust red, Drew doesn't appear to hear him. Eli's on the verge of yanking the knife straight out of his hands when Drew sets it on the bed, as gentle as a child, and taps the fingertips of one hand together like he's still feeling out the scars. The movement matches the beat of the rain against the window.

"I see you've been doing this a while," says Drew, finally looking Eli's way. He doesn't blink, even though his expression's otherwise open, as easygoing as Eli's yet to see it.

"Yeah, long enough," is Eli's gruff reply. He snatches up the knife for no other reason than a protective possessiveness; it doesn't look like Drew's going to make a move for it again.

Drew nods, waits until Eli's turned away to add the knife back into his weapons bag, and continues, "I thought someone with your experience would take better care of his tools."

" _Hey_ ," Eli retorts again, zippering the bag shut with a clank muted by its canvas sides. He glances over his shoulder. "If all you're here to do is criticize, I don't see this partnership of ours working out too well."

It's getting to him. He'll admit that to nobody but himself. The solid information this kid's got -- and it _is_ solid, took them right to the Grand Rapids house they needed without so much as a wrong turn -- isn't doing as good a job as it should to offset the tingles at the back of his neck, like some Goddamn Spidey-sense gone haywire.

Eli's not creeped out by anything anymore. Anything, it seems, but Drew O'Grady -- who's been utterly unperturbed by Eli's display and is now adding, as mild as before, "Her blood's still on the blade."

"It ain't hers. It's old." A rough shrug. "Succubus; you never get that off a -- "

"No." He cocks his head, and there's that look again, the acute focus Eli can't meet for very long. "It's human blood."

"The hell can you tell?"

"I'm good at figuring things out." Drew glances to the side, stilled for a beat before he moves to the next bed. His own bag's there: black canvas worn out to a mottled gray, but otherwise in surprisingly decent shape. As he unzippers it, Eli releases a soundless breath.

"How'd you get into this?" he asks suddenly.

"Hm?" Drew doesn't turn around.

"You're new." However Drew might carry himself, unruffled and eerily intent, Eli knows he can't be more than six months out on the job. He crosses his arms and leans against the TV stand. "Hell, I've still got half a mind to think you were lying back there about being a hunter. Most new ones I meet, they stick to smaller stuff first -- black dogs, spooks. What's got you going after something this big?"

Drew huffs out a chuckle that edges right up against a scoff. Inside his own bag, something clinks. "I've always considered it important. Aiming high," he says. "And, I suppose you could also call it personal reasons." Finally, a swift look over his shoulder, only for a second before he returns to his bag. "Is that so different from any of you?"

Eli's mouth quirks, less a smile than a twist, something wry and crooked. "Nope."

Drew nods, unsurprised, his back still to Eli. "Dr. Suresh didn't know the power he had with that list," he continues. "Neither did I, at first. But I learned quickly enough."

There's a thin strain on the last two words, like they're being pushed out rather than spoken. Drew's straightened, but his head stays bent, and his hands stay in front of him, elbows folded up to hold them parallel to the bed. The itch along the back of Eli's neck starts up again. Outside, the hammering pelt of hailstones crescendos.

"Most of it on my own, but some of it, the _true_ discovery..." At last, Drew turns around, a small, cruel smile widening. "I'll admit I had some help."

One of Drew's hands is cut open, a single thin line sliced along the crease of his palm. The other, he lifts to make a flicking gesture like he's shooing a fly.

The punch of nothing hits Eli full in the chest, carries him across the room, and slams him against the far wall. Distantly, he hears something crack, and he gasps for air as his lungs fold in on themselves, the wind knocked out of them. Drew takes two measured steps forward, blood still leaking from his palm, and smiles. His other hand stays up as though holding Eli in place from ten feet away.

"You were right, Eli," he murmurs. "I did lie to you. Just not about being a hunter. What I hunt, and what you hunt...well." He chuckles. "I'm certain your reasons are personal, too."

He turns his hand, curving his fingers. A crushing pressure leans on Eli's windpipe; he chokes, trying to scrabble at his throat with arms that will barely move.

"But I can't see our partnership working for too long, either. What that girl could do?" He clicks his tongue like the strike of a clock hand, shaking his head. "It could have been mine. Instead, you took the kill." Drew's eyes darken. "Wasted her."

Eli's mouth opens and closes. _Drew,_ he mouths.

Drew grins. The pressure increases until Eli can't breathe at all.

"No," he says. "Not Drew. Sylar."

He wrenches his hand sideways. The crack this time is far louder; Eli goes limp, and when Sylar drops his hand, Eli falls as well in a crumpling thud.

He examines the hunter for the briefest and cursory of moments, like a cat losing interest in its prey the moment it dies. Then Sylar turns his injured palm over and drags a thumb through the blood, eyes closing.

"Very good," whispers an appreciative voice in his ear. "Now." It circles behind him, to his other ear. "Won't that make this much easier?"

Sylar opens his eyes, turning his head just enough to meet the yellow ones of the man next to him. The man grins in response, all teeth and pride. "The list's in the front pocket of his bag," he tells Sylar. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you what to do with it. You're a smart man."

"The smartest you have, I'm sure." Sylar sounds as if he's largely unconcerned by the proclamation. He tries, at least; the hunger, though, wraps over it and drags it away.

The demon affects shock in reply, his yellow eyes wide in mocking surprise. "Would I give you so much of my precious time if you weren't?" And then it's gone as he jerks his head toward the bag. "We'll talk more soon, my boy. In the meantime, you..." He extends a finger and gently pokes it against Sylar's chest; on instinct, Sylar steps back an inch. "Have all the fun you want."

Sylar's answering smile is slow to form, predatory, languid. By the time he's retrieved the list from Eli's bag, the yellow-eyed demon has vanished.


	6. Chapter 6

> >> THEODORE SPRAGUE: LOS ANGELES, CA

 _Ted goes off the grid five days after Nathan Petrelli's shooting. He's hearing things about it; nobody's got the full story, but there's just enough to figure out that the sooner he gets the hell out and holes up in Nevada, the better._

 _It's not for his safety. It's for theirs; it's for everyone's._

* * *

Mohinder's panicked flight doesn't stop even after he gets in the car. In the northern midwest, the greatest ground can be covered by going south, and so he does as fast as he's able, forgoing sleep in favor of energy drinks and motels in favor of the car itself.

He catches a report on the local news in St. Cloud, Minnesota: a woman found dead in her home, Grand Rapids police discussing the brutality of the murder, an Agent Henriksen citing FBI involvement and fingerprint checks to determine a suspect. Hardly aware of the movement, Mohinder presses his thumb against the palm of his hand and lifts it away, as if expecting a swirled pattern to be left behind.

He hadn't worn gloves when he entered the house.

 _Why should I have?_ he thinks, throat aching anew. _It's not as if I expected to walk into a crime scene._

A day after that places him in Des Moines, where he veers sideways and down to the Kansas flatlands, keeping well below the speed limit despite the empty, ceaseless expanse on all sides. It takes a conscious effort. He's unused to thinking like a criminal; it should be no different from how he's been forced to think since leaving the Roadhouse -- as prey, desperately covering his tracks, diverging from his path for reasons of survival rather than curiosity -- but the American police have far more powerful tools than the hunters.

Midway through the state, he allows himself one stop at a diner rather than a convenience store. To think that this, even, should be an indulgence now: he selects his meal with the carelessness of a starving man and enjoys every bite as he listens to the news radio piped in between top forty hits.

When it reaches the politics headlines, his fork stills.

" _Sad news today as New York congressional candidate Nathan Petrelli passed away this morning at nine forty-five Eastern time, succumbing to injuries he sustained at a fundraiser dinner five nights ago..._ "

There's more that he doesn't hear. Mohinder closes his eyes, settling his fork down. Nathan's death may have only been the most public. How many more have died and gone unreported?

And that circles to the same question he always finds himself thinking: how could any sane individual possibly use _demons_ as an excuse to commit murder?

"Everything all right?"

The frisson of shock jolts up his spine and yanks him straight; too quickly, he lifts his head, startling the waitress enough that she pulls back. Nearly fumbling her coffee pot, she flashes a nervous, apologetic smile once she recovers. "Sorry, there," she says. "Didn't mean to startle you."

"No, it's all right." He tries to mirror her smile, with limited success. "Everything's fine, thank you."

It's not, quite obviously, but it's either this or risking making a memorable impression on the woman. The ruse seems to work: her smile's warmer, but also a bit more distracted, as she nods and moves on to the next table.

With a quiet sigh, Mohinder turns the fork around in his hand, eventually pressing the side of it into his pancakes. He's about to lift the bite to his mouth when the door jingles open; on reflex, he turns toward the noise. Only afterwards does he think to berate himself and look away; if he's not meaning to draw attention, this isn't the way to go about it.

It doesn't help when the woman who enters glances around, spots him, and brightens into the warm smile expected of an old friend. " _There_ you are, honey," she says, satisfied, and begins to move toward him.

Mohinder reacts without thought. He turns the fork around again to press the tines against the inside of his wrist, lowering his arm beneath the table. "I'm sorry?" he asks. "I think you may have the wrong -- "

The woman sighs in gentle exasperation. As she slides into the opposite side of the booth, not once dropping the easy familiarity, "You put that fork back on the table, Doctor, I ain't gonna hurt you."

Mohinder freezes. Dimly, he can feel the pressure of his pulse against the metal tines, tiny rapid beats lifting it away from his skin. The woman just clucks her tongue and holds out her hand in a brisk, matronly movement. "You really think you'd get anything in with a weapon like that, anyway?" she asks him. "Lord. We're gonna have to train you up better than that."

"You're one of them." He hasn't found his voice, but he seems to have found a pale copy of it, distant and faintly echoing. _This must be it,_ he thinks. _This is how it ends._

"Uh-uh." That elicits a snort, but not an unkind one. "Afraid you got it backwards. I'm not looking for you, you're looking for me." Her hand stays where it is, resting in the air above the table, but it's relaxed now, expectant. "Missouri Mosely, and I believe I'm on page one, right?"

Mohinder swallows; gapes at her. The woman just tilts her head, nods to her hand, and continues, "Well? Don't I get a greeting?"

"You seem to already know a fair bit about me," he manages -- but he lifts the fork away, sets it alongside his plate, and, after a brief hesitation, clasps her hand. Her smile blossoms to a grin as she shakes it, firmly; it startles him a bit, but it's a startlement buried far beneath the other shocks he's experienced so far.

"Psychic born and bred," she says with a shrug. "Comes with the territory. Doesn't mean it's not polite to introduce yourself, and tuck your elbows in, Mohinder."

"What?" But unthinking, automatic, he complies, shifting so his elbow rests flush against the edge of the table. Half a second later, the waitress breezes back by, close enough that he would have struck her had he not moved. He blinks in surprise, staring after the woman, then glances back to Missouri, who only lifts her eyebrows in an _I told you so_ expression.

"If you know that there are people looking for me," he says at last, as quiet as he can manage while still being heard over the surrounding conversation and clinking of silverware, "you must know they're looking for you as well. And that they may be most likely looking to kill you."

"You think I wouldn't see anybody coming if they came for me?" she asks, amused, as she plucks a sugar packet out of the holder. "Besides," a meaningful look back to Mohinder, "they won't. What I've got? It ain't the work of no demon, or whatever nonsense those hunters're spouting nowadays. Good people, mind," she adds, and is kind enough to ignore Mohinder's frankly disbelieving look, "but you don't get too many with a good head on their shoulders to go with it."

"I'm beginning to see that," Mohinder mutters, mostly to himself. Nevertheless, he watches her far closer than before. "You don't believe them, then?"

" _Hell_ no." The snort's far less kind this time. "Not as far as I'm concerned, anyway. 'Scuse me, may I have an iced tea?" she adds to another passing waitress, who nods and continues on.

Unexpectedly, Mohinder's finding that he's beginning to smile, a faint tug at both corners of his mouth as relief washes the bits of tension away. "I cannot begin to tell you how glad I am to hear that," he says. "Ever since I spoke with them, this -- this _delusion_ of theirs has become more dangerous with each day. There are already two people possibly dead because of them, maybe more, and all because they cannot accept the scientific basis of this work. It wouldn't surprise me if they started to burn people at the stake. And it's even more dangerous because it -- "

The waitress returns to set a glass of iced tea in front of Missouri. She murmurs her thanks, tears open the packet of sugar she'd been toying with, and empties it into the glass. As white particles swirl down through the layer of ice, she studies Mohinder, unruffled and attentive, without saying a word. The expectant silence is enough to press him to continue -- even if, he thinks, she may already know what he's going to say.

"I've found their ideas start to insinuate themselves," he continues, slow to find each word. "To be honest, I've even begun to wonder at the truth of it, at times." A pause follows; he clears his throat before going on, "Exactly how much do you know about me, Miss Mosely?"

"Mmmm, just the basics." Another shrug as she gives her tea a final stir, then lifts it to take a sip. "Enough to know I ought to come down and get a good look at you myself. This work of yours got inherited from your daddy -- who was on the right track in a lot of ways, by the way," she adds. " _He_ got started on it because of your sister -- "

Mohinder's back stiffens, his eyes widening anew. She pauses, gives another little smile. "That convince you I'm the real deal?"

With his throat stuck shut and his hands flat on the table, Mohinder can only nod. He also can't interrupt as Missouri circles back to her original topic. "And you got _just_ enough of a believer in you from your grandma to do just what you said -- come real close to buying into something you don't think is real. You're still wondering even right now."

"No." Even Mohinder himself is taken aback at the strength in his voice. Alight with a sudden enthusiasm he hasn't felt since unlocking his father's list, he leans forward, eager. Ever since the Roadhouse, he's felt as if he's been treading on quicksand; now, here, at last, is a shred of solid ground. "I'm not. I don't have to, if you've found me. Do you realize that you're the first one I've met, with an ability that goes far beyond the scope of normal human evolution? It's all been highly probable, yes, but still more theory than fact until now. With your permission, I could even run a few more tests, try to further determine the unique genomes you possess so I can -- "

"Build up more of your list?"

There's no accusation to it, no heat, no volume. It's as calm and matter-of-fact as every other aspect of Missouri's bearing. It still paralyzes Mohinder, striking down his sentence mid-word as the weight of realization drops onto it.

 _Build up more of the list._ To what end -- so it can be lost again? Circulated, like so much newsprint? His father's research has driven him across continents, across _oceans,_ and now, to even continue the work of Chandra Suresh --

The very act of proving him right could lead to more death.

With no preamble, Missouri reaches across the table to clasp his hand; Mohinder barely feels it. "Oh, honey. I'm so sorry," she murmurs, and sounds as if she genuinely means it.

Mohinder nods in acknowledgment. He glances down at his food, the movement seeming to spin too far, pushing him into brief dizziness before he can right himself to look up again. With nothing else to say, he says the first thing that struggles to the surface of his mind.

"Let me take you with me," he hears himself say. "I can keep you safe."

Missouri just chuckles, putting her other hand over his. "With what?" she asks. "Doc, not that I don't appreciate it, but I can take care of myself just fine."

"Then what about -- " Mohinder wracks his brain, and then, all at once, the fog of incomprehension clears. "The list," he says. "We can at least help these people. I have full copies, but not all the base information was complete. If we were to combine that with your ability, we could find these people that are left -- warn them together, do what we can to keep them safe."

She's shaking her head again before hes even finished, regretful but firm. "I don't mean any offense here, Mohinder, but that ain't my job, either. Its yours. If you really think you made this mess, then its up to you to clean it up, right?" She releases his hands. "Tell you what, though. Lemme take a look at that list and see if there's anything I can add to it. I can help you out that much so long as I'm here."

Mohinder exhales. "I would appreciate that," he murmurs. "Thank you."

"Yeah, we'll see how much youre thanking me in a couple weeks." It's no less straightforward than the rest of their conversation, but the faint ominousness to the words prickles the back of Mohinder's neck. She slides out of the booth and stands. "Come on. Lets get you paid up and see what we can do."


	7. Chapter 7

> >> NICOLE SANDERS: LAS VEGAS, NV

 _She wakes up in a holding cell with a bored-looking cop nearby. Too dazed at first to panic, Niki cards her fingers through her hair -- it's stringy, damp, matted with something red -- and croaks, "What am I doing here?"_

 _The cop tells her. That's when the dread creeps in, and, frantic, Niki combs through the rest of her hair, more blood cracking and flaking away like snow. It's all over the floor by the time she stops, sobbing too hard to keep going._

 _The officer pops his gum. "You gonna tell me why you did it?"_

 _Still crying, Niki squeezes her eyes shut. An instant later, she lulls herself to motionless, raises her head, and glares at the man with the ferocity of a cornered lioness._

 _"They were going to kill us," hisses Jessica through bared teeth. "They were going to kill our_ son. _"_

* * *

Dean's glass meets the bartop with a thump. "You're shitting me."

The Roadhouse crowds haven't started to gather yet; only Ellen, Sam, and Dean sit at the bar, the Winchesters shoulder to shoulder and Ellen on the opposite side. Jo goes back and forth in flashes of blonde and green, shepherding supplies from the back room and throwing curious, nearly resentful looks at her mother. Ellen stays put with two shotglasses in hand and a towel slung over one shoulder, but it's a perfunctory gesture: for now, the bar may as well be closed, and she keeps her attention on the boys.

Dean's half-grinning, disbelieving, waiting for the punch line to come. "The guy was _here?_ I mean, we picked up some rumors from Bobby on the way out here, but the tight-lipped son of a bitch left out that little detail."

"How do you think the list got out in the first place?" The two shotglasses pinched in Ellen's fingers join Dean's pint glass; she folds her arms, regarding the boys. "I tried to keep him here long enough to figure out what to do with the poor bastard, but Andre got to him first."

"He's dead?" asks Sam, brow furrowed.

Ellen shakes her head, one shoulder hiked in a half-shrug. "If he is, it's news to me."

"News -- wait a minute." Dean smacks Sam's arm without looking away from Ellen, ignoring the muffled "ow!" he gets in response. "What's the good doctor's first name again?"

"Mohinder."

Dean finally turns toward his brother. "Minneapolis," he says, and that one word clears the confusion from Sam's face.

It does nothing to help Ellen. She looks back and forth between them, waiting; when no answers seem to be forthcoming, she asks, "You mind filling me in?"

"Minneapolis," Sam repeats, leaning his forearms on the bar as he clasps his hands. "Reports all over the local news there about a girl who got killed in Grand Rapids. Police are saying the fingerprints matched up to a Dr. Mohinder Suresh of New York. No motive yet, no explanation, but," and here he exchanges another glance with Dean, "sounds like it was ritualistic in nature."

"Demon?"

"Hunter."

" _And,_ " Dean puts in, swallowing back another mouthful of beer, "guess what our girl's name was?" He doesn't wait to be prompted this time. "Sue Landers. Betcha ten bucks her name's on that list."

Ellen sighs. "Well, shit," she mutters. Behind her, there's a clatter as Jo sets down a tray a touch too hard; Ellen glances back, quick and sharp, before turning to the Winchesters again.

Sam's opening and closing the palms of his hands, fingers still linked together, studying the bartop with his hair hanging in his eyes. The slight frown on his face wavers, as if it can't decide between simple thought or true worry. "You don't know how he even got the list together?" he finally asks.

"No," Ellen starts to say, a little wearied, before Dean interrupts.

"Gotta admit it's some pretty good footwork, though, if it's the real deal," he says with a shrug. "Especially for a civilian. Guy's had more success finding these people than anybody else so far."

"Dean, it's not footwork, it's coincidence," is all Sam gets out before Ellen rounds on Dean, eyes blazing.

"Yeah, and I wouldn't say it matters one good Goddamn way or another," she snaps. "Especially with your little brother's name on it."

The half smile on Dean's face drops away in an instant. Sam's staring in shock; Dean straightens up, matching Ellen's glare with a coldly furious one of his own. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up. You're telling me that fucker is after Sammy?"

"Why do you think I called you?" The glare holds, but as if it's positioned on a thin wire, visibly held in place. "And why the _hell_ do you think I called you back to say come in the daytime and stay low on the drive out? These aren't full-fledged demons people're looking to kill -- they're _kids._ And those kids don't know what the hell's going on any more than the rest of us do, frankly, except they're the ones getting killed for it."

By then, Ellen has both hands planted on the bar, fingers dug tight against the wood. Dean's mouth sets, muscles cording out along the jaw; Sam backs a pace away, stunned into little more than automatic movement.

When Dean finally speaks, it simmers low in the back of his throat. "I guess we're taking a little side trip to Grand Rapids, huh," he says.

Sam finds his voice. "Dean -- "

"What, Sam?" he bites out, spinning around. "You wanna get yourself shot at again by some whackjob who thinks you're the Antichrist?"

"Dean, Suresh isn't the guy who's killing everyone!"

"No, he's just the one who sicced a whole bunch of hunters and who the fuck knows what else on your ass!"

" _Hey!_ " Ellen bellows over both of them, loud enough to echo in the stillness of the bar. As one, they turn toward her, Dean practically vibrating with anger; Ellen's voice is quieter, but not much calmer, when she continues. "You want my advice, you get off the radar. No jobs, take your ear off the ground, ditch as much as you can afford to lose. Go back to Bobby's if it'll make it easier. If Mohinder's still out there, trust me, talking to him ain't gonna do much."

This time, Dean's grin is utterly humorless and practically feral. "Nah, but it'll make me feel _real_ good," he tells her. Shoving his barstool back, he gets to his feet, already turning toward the door without a glance at his brother. "Come on, Sammy."

Helpless, Sam shoots a look at Ellen -- she's stony-faced, arms crossed again -- and says, so quiet as to nearly be under his breath, "Thanks for the heads-up."

"Just be careful, Sam." Her expression doesn't change. Her voice stays flat. For a moment, it looks as if she's about to say more; she nearly does, before a quiet chiming sounds from Sam's pocket.

"Shit -- " Half-turning, Sam starts to fish out his cell phone, noticing in the same movement that Dean is nearly at the door. "Thank you," he says again to Ellen as he hurries to catch up.

They're outside the Roadhouse, with his phone on the third ring, before he can successfully extricate it from his pocket. When he sees the unrecognized number on the caller ID, Sam's steps slow. Frowning, he clicks on the phone and holds it to his ear. "Hello?"

A long silence answers on the other end of the line. During it, Dean stops in his tracks, turning around to stare at his brother in wary puzzlement. Then, at last, someone speaks.

"Ah, yes. Is..." It's a man's voice, somewhat hesitant and young-sounding, each word rounded by a cultured British accent. "Is this Samuel Winchester?"

Sam freezes. Several feet away, Dean's forehead creases. _What?_ he mouths.

"Can I ask who's calling?" Sam replies, as calmly as he can manage.

The next silence stretches even longer than the first, long enough for Sam to think that the call's been disconnected. It's a shock, for more reasons than one, when the man picks up again with, "My name is Dr. Mohinder Suresh. I was told by a Ms. Missouri Mosely that I could reach Mr. Winchester here. I've been hoping to speak to him for a while now."

A full two seconds pass before Sam can unstick his muscles. When he does, it happens all at once as he bolts for the Impala, gesturing frantically for Dean to follow. "Yeah, the feeling's mutual," he says, no less calm. "This is Sam. Are you staying with Missouri?"

Dr. Suresh pulls in an audible breath. "My God," he whispers, nearly wondering. Then: "I'm not, unfortunately. Our conversation was rather brief."

Sam nods, yanking open the passenger door as Dean dives into the driver's seat. "That's too bad," he says. "She's a good friend of the family, I was thinking -- listen, this may be something we'd better talk about in person. Any chance you could give us the address where you're staying?"

"Currently, I'm afraid I don't have one," he replies, with a touch of self-deprecation. "But I'm in Kansas, about a half-day's drive from the Colorado border, I believe -- are you nearby? Perhaps we could meet each other halfway."

"Kansas, half a day's drive from Colorado," Sam repeats, slamming the car door. "Huh, that's actually pretty close to where we are. We're up in Nebraska. Uh, how about we meet in Scottsbluff? There's a place called the Lamplight Inn just outside of town, we've been there a couple times, it's reasonably priced, the food's good...say, around noon tomorrow?"

"That would be perfect." The doctor's smile is audible over the connection. "I look forward to meeting you."

"Yeah, you too," he echoes, a little dimly, and hesitates a moment before clicking off the phone.

It's no more than half a second later before Dean bursts out with, "Dude, _what?_ "

Sam looks over. "Looks like we're not going to Grand Rapids after all," he says, and tosses the phone onto the dashboard.


	8. Chapter 8

> >> HANA GITELMAN: DECEASED

 _She hears the chatter on locked forums she hacks with a thought, ones and zeroes flowing through her like blood cells. It's not enough._

> >> WEST ROSEN: DECEASED

 _Costa Verde rarely sees any cloud cover, and he has no other means of escape._

> >> HIRO NAKAMURA: DECEASED

 _He fights back, yelling about how he rejected the yellow-eyed man's offer like a true hero, but they don't listen._

 _In all, nine of the sixteen on page two fall._

* * *

After reaching the Lamplight Inn two hours early and settling in on a second floor room, Mohinder begins to regret trading the highway for a stationary address.

" _\-- positively identified as Dr. Mohinder Suresh, a taxi driver from New York City who, according to sources, came to America approximately six weeks ago after leaving his position at Chennai University. The FBI has warned not to approach Suresh, as he is considered armed and extremely dangerous --_ "

Several states away, and it's all over the news. Not merely the local channels, either; when he turns the channel to a national station, the same broadcast repeats in nearly the same words. Mohinder finds himself gaping at his own photograph, mouthing a soundless protest at the television: _That wasnt me._

He draws the curtains. He'd already paid for the room in cash, one precaution he picked up (along with a disposable cell phone) after parting ways with Missouri. There's enough food on hand, albeit unhealthy food, to sustain him for a short time.

And then, once he leaves -- hell have to find a better plan than his current one.

He naps fitfully, wakes soon after, eats as quickly as possible while reexamining the notes on his computer. At twelve-ten, a series of sharp raps pound along the door, rushing into one another in a skittering rhythm. Mohinder's chest seizes tight. He doesn't move, watching the window again, straining to see through the curtains.

The knocking speeds up. Even with a glance to his watch to reassure himself, he still has the distinct impression of walking toward a gallows as he shuts his laptop with two fingers and moves to the door. The room has one lone lock and a flimsy chain to keep the door shut; Mohinder unfastens the lock, but keeps the chain in place, before he pulls the door open just enough to peer out.

It's two men, one compact and well-muscled, the other stretched tall and lanky with hair half-curled in his eyes. It's the taller one who smiles, lips compressed tight. "You must be Dr. Suresh," he says.

It clicks -- the voice, the wariness with which he carries himself. This is not how Mohinder pictured the man; he expected him, almost, to be smaller, even younger than college age, completely disproportionate to everything that's occurred in his name. _They're hunters,_ he remembers, and only pushes the door to the full span of the chain.

All the same, an uncertain smile turns up the edges of his mouth. "Yes," he begins.

The full span of the chain, it turns out, is all the shorter man needs to lash out and punch Mohinder in the face.

Stars explode in his eyes. He thinks he hears the chain crack free, and the noise of shouting; Mohinder goes down with both hands clapped over his nose, gasping for breath.

Sam's companion shoulders the door open the rest of the way and aims another kick. Sam shouts again -- " _Dean!_ " -- as Mohinder rolls to the side, trying to scramble to his feet in the same movement.

The snap of a cocking shotgun pulls him up short. One hand still on his nose, the other pressed against the floor to leave behind a bloody handprint, he looks up, forcibly trying to steady himself to keep the trembling at bay.

They're hunters. A full, far more detailed copy of the list rests on his laptop ten feet away. Mohinder closes his eyes, bracing himself.

(And he thinks again of Kali, in a flash bright enough to blind all other thoughts, and his grandmother's words loud and insistent -- )

"You've got one chance," says Dean, in the sort of calm that's braced on both sides by uncontrolled anger, "to tell me what the hell you want with my brother."

 _Brother?_ Mohinder opens his eyes. Dean grins, bloodthirsty: "Come on, Doc, speak up, I can't hear you."

"Dean, come on -- " This time, Sam reaches for his brother's arm, as if to push the shotgun away. Dean makes no motion, nor says one word in response. His eyes stay fixed on Mohinder.

With the slow care that he hopes gives Dean no reason to fire, Mohinder drags one hand under his nose to wipe away the blood and rocks back to lift his other hand, palm out, surrendering. His balance wobbles, thrown by pain as much as the sight of the shotgun's end. "I only wanted to speak to him," he says. "Please. I don't wish to harm either of you."

Dean barks out a harsh laugh. "You don't wanna _harm_ us? It's your Goddamn list that's got everybody into this mess. How the fuck did you even -- "

"I don't _know!_ " Mohinder surprises them all, most of all himself, by the shout. The helpless admission of ignorance tightens around the lump in his stomach, still there and slowly growing. "If there is any sort of true connection between your beliefs and mine -- "

"If?"

" -- it's not one I can begin to fathom, let alone study properly!"

"Meaning, what, you're gonna try your little research games some more?" The shotgun lifts an inch, level with Mohinder's heart in a silent dare.

In his own frustration, rising fast to pull alongside the terror and anger, Mohinder finds himself rearing up to meet Dean's challenge. The shotgun forgotten, he glares at him and spits, "Just as you've tried your little games of slaughtering these people based on nothing more than a superstitious belief in -- "

He's cut short as Dean yanks the gun aside in favor of grabbing Mohinder by the collar, hauling him upward a foot. Mohinder chokes, coughing out a breath, but his gaze doesn't waver from Dean's.

"Prove to me," he rasps, and tastes blood as it runs over his upper lip, "that you're different from them."

Dean's mouth twists. They hold motionless for several seconds; then, Dean mutters, "Think the fact that I haven't blown off your head yet's a good start," and slams Mohinder back to the floor before whirling around to stalk a few paces away.

Sam moves forward to take Dean's spot, the replacement so smooth that, had it not an air of thoughtlessness to it, it could pass for rehearsed. He regards Mohinder for another moment before offering a hand; Mohinder hesitates, then clasps it to haul himself to his feet. In silence, Sam roots around in a pocket and comes up with a scrap of cloth, which he passes over.

Mohinder wipes at the blood again with the proffered cloth, dabs his nose, and pinches it shut in an attempt to stop the bleeding. It aches enough that he almost lets go; only his knowledge of first aid presses him to continue. "Thank you," he mumbles. The vowels pinch together to match. More tentative: "Mr. Winchester -- "

"It's Sam," he comments shortly. Glancing over his shoulder to Dean, "Could you excuse us a moment?"

"Of course." It's not as if he has much choice in the matter, after all. Mohinder continues to nurse his injured nose as Sam leaves, pulling Dean just far enough away for no more than the occasional word to escape their hushed and heated conversation. "Moron" seems to be a common one. So does a small variety of curses, mostly from Dean.

Several minutes later, both of them return. It's Sam who does the speaking now, however, whether out of some attempt to pacify Mohinder or because Dean is still choosing to stare off to the side, entire body drawn taut with rage.

"We're going to stay here with you," says Sam. It's far less a request than it is an order. "Two things. One, you don't leave the motel room -- it's too dangerous for you, and we'd rather not get caught with an FBI fugitive, too."

Mohinder pales at the last, but nods, resolute. "And the second?"

Dean speaks up. "You give us everything you've got on your research. And yeah -- " his eyes, here, finally flick to Mohinder, "that includes the whole list."

Despite himself, Mohinder's voice goes cold, protective. He shifts the cloth on his nose. "What do you plan to do with it?"

"Hey. Information sharing only," Sam interjects, spreading his hands. "You help us with your side of it, we'll help you with ours. Maybe we can figure it out together, huh?"

Mohinder is silent for a long beat. Then, at last: "All right," he whispers. "Let me gather my notes."

* * *

Several hours later, the wind's whistling by so fast that it rattles the windows of the entire motel. Every so often, there's the hollow _pock_ of hailstones striking the pavement; rain is more frequent, but moves in waves, curtains falling and lifting every few minutes.

The sky, Mohinder thinks, has never quite been that color before. He stands at the window, leaning against its frame with his arms folded, peering up at the streetlight above their room to watch the light split the raindrops.

"Dude," Dean snaps behind him. "If you're gonna stand there, at least do it so everyone and their fucking dog can't see you."

Nonplussed, Mohinder glances over his shoulder, then moves to the side a few inches to better obscure himself from public view. Dean mutters something that sounds vaguely like _shouldn't have to be my job to play babysitter_ before flipping through another page of Mohinder's notes.

Sam's next to him, keying through the data on Mohinder's laptop. "Could the demon be picking these kids _because_ of their genetic traits?" he asks, half to the room and half to himself. "Maybe they weren't linked to start. Maybe he just figured they'd make better targets because they've already got some power of their own."

"It's crossed my mind." Mohinder doesn't look away from the window. "Though I'd be a little surprised if the answer turned out to be that simple, despite what Occam's Razor may say."

"Occam's what now?" Dean looks up.

"The simplest explanation is usually the right one," clarifies Sam. A series of clicks follow as he pages to the next document. "It's, uh, a logic principle dating back to the thirteen hundreds started by a guy named William of Ockham."

"Sounds like my kind of guy." Dean flips over a map, examines it. "So seriously, Doc, you did all this yourself?"

"Not all of it," admits Mohinder. "Most of the notes and research belonged to my father. It was his life's work." He turns his head; a slight, bitter smile curves his mouth. "He was also a staunch atheist, so I can't imagine how he'd feel to know it was being used to promote acts of religious fanaticism."

Dean rolls his eyes and goes back to the map. Sam, on the other hand, lifts his attention away from the laptop to study Mohinder. "What happened to him?" he asks quietly.

"He was killed several months ago." It's very simply said; it also doesn't require much further elaboration, to them or to Mohinder himself. He turns back to the window. "By one of the people he was studying -- a man named Sylar."

"Yeah?" Sam frowns. "I don't remember seeing a Sylar on the list."

"I'm certain it was an alias." Mohinder shrugs, a very small movement. "He may very well be on it; just under a different name."

Sam doesn't answer. The rain patters harder; it becomes the only sound in the room for a moment, interspersed with the rustle of paper and the clack of the laptop keys. Then, behind him, Mohinder hears Sam take a breath. "I'm sorry for your loss," he says.

Mohinder glances back. "Thank you," he replies, as quiet as before; he considers offering the same in return, remembering Ellen's comment about Sam and Dean's father, but bites it off mid-formation when he notices Dean's expression growing darker, eye contact fastened on the pages in front of him. So Mohinder leans on the window frame in silence, watching the storm, and watching the sky shade to a sickly greenish-orange.

They call it a night at eleven o'clock. Sam and Dean take the beds; Mohinder takes the chair by the window, several of Sam's own notes in hand, and doesn't sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

> >> GABRIEL GRAY: NEW YORK, NY

 _Let them come._

 _He'll welcome the challenge after killing so many himself._

* * *

It takes Sam a while to fall asleep as well, gripped by an unexplained restlessness that hounds him to the point of complete fatigue.

 _I know you,_ he hears a thoughtful voice say right as his eyes finally close. When he opens them again, they're inches away from another man's, his head cocked to the side like a dog listening for a call. Sam scrambles back -- not on the bed any longer, but pavement slicked with ice and rain -- and tucks his feet under him, breathing hard.

"I don't know you," he answers. An inch at a time, Sam shifts his weight into a crouch that mirrors the other man's, a hand splayed between his feet to keep his balance. The man smiles in reply, cruelly amused; when he rises from the crouch, Sam finds himself standing up in tandem. They're the same height.

"Yes. You do." He still speaks with the musing, detached cadence of before, as if he's examining an insect. As he starts to circle Sam, Sam pivots on one heel to match, always keeping eye contact, a hand settling to the small of his back to check for the weapon he keeps there. "We just haven't met yet."

It seems to make perfect sense in the dream. Sam's hand eases away from the gun. "Yeah? So when will we?"

"Oh, I wouldn't be so anxious," the man answers, voice edging toward a faint sing-song, taunting. "You remember what he said, I'm sure. That night." He spreads his hands. "The plans he's made, for you, and the children like you."

There's no tension to how Sam carries himself, though, from a dim distance, he knows that there should be. "Kind of a hard thing to forget," he replies.

"Mm." The man pauses in his circling -- not a hesitation, but a deliberation -- before stepping forward, closing the distance between them. "And you never wanted them, did you," he hisses. "The gifts that he offered. He told me he'd changed his mind. That you were _undeserving._ "

As sudden as the viciousness arrived, it disappears. The man leans in the last few inches that separate them, his mouth almost brushing Sam's ear. "When you and I meet, Sam Winchester," he whispers, "I'll be taking more than just your ability. I'll get far more use out of your life than you ever could."

And lightning-quick, he slams a hand (or did he move at all?) against Sam's forehead, sending him bolting awake with a muffled gasp.

The rain hasn't stopped thudding against the roof. By the window, washed in the feeble glow of the streetlights, Dr. Suresh raises his eyes from the notes in his hands and fixes Sam with a bemused look. It slides toward Dean, still asleep and snoring quietly, before he lowers his voice to ask, "Is everything all right?"

Sam nods, sparing a look of his own to Dean. "Bad dreams. It happens sometimes." A pause follows, filled by the sound of the rain, as he runs a hand over his face; then he adds, reluctantly, "I think it's linked to the precognition."

One side of Suresh's mouth quirks, hardly more than a twitch. "Shall I ask if you saw anything worth sharing?"

"No." His rebuttal comes out sharper than he means it to be, but Sam doesn't apologize. Instead, he slides out of bed, rubbing his temples, like the blow from his dream had been a physical one here. Suresh watches in silence, throwing brief glances to the window and Sam's notes in turn.

"I must admit, it's a little comforting to know I'm not the only one who can't sleep," he confesses at last in an undertone. Setting the notes aside, Suresh rises from his chair to make his way to the bathroom, picking up one of the plastic cups by the television as he goes. There's the sound of running water; when he returns, the glass is full. He offers it to Sam.

Sam isn't thirsty. He can also recognize a gesture of goodwill when he sees one, awkward as it might be. He accepts the cup with a mumbled, "Thanks," and takes a perfunctory sip as Suresh returns to the window seat.

"May I ask you something else, then?"

Sam look up from the water, suddenly guarded. "What?"

Suresh draws away like a retreating animal, startled back into silence by the look on Sam's face. When he picks up again, it halts every few steps, well aware of the difficulties between them. "When I was first looking for you," he begins, still barely louder than a whisper, "the only permanent address I could locate was your apartment in California -- the one that burned down. You were a law student there, correct?"

"Yeah." Sam thumbs the rim of the cup, glancing away. "I was."

"At Stanford, which is an extremely prestigious university here." Mohinder leans forward, forearms resting on his knees. Sam braces himself for the inevitable question, only to be jolted onto a different track when greeted with what follows: "What would make a clearly intelligent young man like you start to believe in demons?"

Nothing but honest curiosity marks either the inquiry or Suresh's face; that alone stops Sam from firing back with a short, bad-tempered response. He takes another sip of water and controls his voice. "Just something I grew up with, I guess."

"It's something I grew up with as well, but I never picked up a gun and thought about killing them," Suresh points out.

Sam eyes him. "Grew up with them how?"

"My grandmother." There's a wry lilt to the words now. "She was a...rather religious woman. My father never liked her very much, least of all for the ideas she put in my head."

"Religion's not the same thing as hunting." Sam drains the last of the water, dents a thin crease in the side of the cup with his thumbnail. "I'm not saying there's no connection at all, but -- religion's based on faith. Hunting's based on fact." He mirrors the wryness. "You'd probably get a better discussion about this out of Dean."

"How so?"

"He's actually a lot like you." At the surprised lift to Suresh's eyebrows, Sam exhales an almost inaudible laugh and adds, "Kind of. I mean, he believes what he can see and gets skeptical of things he can't. We've seen demons. A lot more than just demons, too -- monsters, myths, you name it. It's just part of our lives." Sam turns the cup around in his hands. "Hell, it's a part of everyone's life; it's just that most of them are lucky enough not to know anything about it."

"How do you know that what you're seeing is the work of a demon, though?" he presses. "How do you know there isn't a more rational explanation?"

Sam snorts, getting to his feet. "Trust me, if you ever see it, you'll know," he tells him. "There's a lot out there you can't explain through science."

Suresh doesn't seem entirely satisfied by that answer, but resignation hangs beneath it, a quiet acceptance of both Sam's reply and his own dissatisfaction. He sighs, murmurs, "I see," and turns back to the window.

Without thinking, Sam follows his gaze. Slowly, his expression settles into a frown.

 _If you ever see it, you'll know --_

In one hasty motion, he wheels around to the TV, switches it on, and cranks down the volume as he starts flipping through the channels.

Suresh straightens up, his brow furrowing anew. "Sam?"

Sam ignores him. A few more clicks of the Channel Up button later, he settles on the Weather Channel, rocking back onto his heels to watch the report. Suresh stands, joining him at the foot of the bed.

"There," Sam says at last, resting a finger against the screen, on the minuscule red dot positioned just west of Scottsbluff and surrounded by clear skies. "Look at that. That's what's going on outside right now, and -- " Increasingly grim, "Look at how localized it is."

His mind's whirling back through the dream. It hadn't felt quite like the others he'd had, but what the man had said, echoing that way too familiar line about plans for the children like him, and with the tight swirl of rain and hail centered just overhead...

Sam jumps to his feet and slams a palm against Dean's ankles. "Dean, _wake up!_ " he hisses.

Muzzilly, Dean blinks awake, squinting up at Sam; as soon as he sees the look on his brother's face, the grogginess vaporizes. He sits up. "What?"

Sam points to the television, with the weathercaster silently and cheerfully describing the strange pocket of weather in Nebraska. "I think we're gonna have company soon."

Dean's expression hardens. He throws back the covers and stalks to his bag of weaponry. Sam goes on, "I just had a dream -- "

"Freaky-ass or normal?" Dean yanks the bag open.

"Uh, freaky-ass. Different from the others, but still -- "

"And you didn't wake me up when you had it why?"

"Because I didn't think -- "

"Sam," Suresh cuts in. He's gone back to the window, and this time, he's opened the curtains the whole way.

" _What?_ " As soon as Sam notices what he's done, he strides across the room to him with a hissed, "Mohinder, don't do th -- "

The sentence dies on his lips as soon as he sees what Suresh is staring at.

"I think," Suresh says quietly, as he looks down at horde of people crossing the rain-slicked road, "they may already be here."


	10. Chapter 10

> >> SAMUEL WINCHESTER: PALO ALTO, CA

"Shit," Dean keeps muttering under his breath. " _Shit._ "

They can only assume the crowd's growing; Sam and Mohinder have backed away from the window by then, dropping the curtains and cutting the TV off in an effort to shake some of their attention. None of them truly believe it will last long. One by one, Sam and Dean load up their weapons, ratcheting in ammunition with a practiced, unified precision. Mohinder paces, shooting occasional glances their way that are all at once helpless and considering.

"Do you have a spare?" he blurts out.

Dean and Sam both look up, startled. Dean's expression quickly shades into annoyance. "Dude, do you even know which way to point it?" he bites out, snide.

"Dean -- " Sam admonishes.

Overlapping that, Mohinder says, very level, "I carried one while I was in New York. For a time, there were threats on my life." He holds out a hand. "And if you genuinely want me to understand your work, I believe I should have the chance to do some of it myself."

Neither one moves right away. Finally, Dean snorts, but relents. "Fine. Here," he says, digging into the bag and coming up with a Beretta nine-millimeter. Swinging it around his finger, he grasps the barrel, offers the grip to Mohinder. "Knock yourself out."

As Mohinder takes the gun, Sam tells him, "Mohinder, you don't have to do this."

"No," he says, quite firmly, checking the gun with neither the precision nor the speed of the Winchesters, but doing a passable job nonetheless. "I do." He glances up, taking a deep breath. "I caused this. I'd also prefer the chance to set some of it right."

Outside, underneath the rain, there's an incomprehensible shout. All three stop and glance to the window, poised and waiting. Nothing more happens, but when Dean slams the last of his ammunition home, it's with a decisive finality that rings like a curtain call.

"Showtime," he says, and gestures with the gun toward the window.

They follow the most simple and logical progression: Dean first, Sam and Mohinder behind. With the muzzle of his own gun, Dean rakes back the very edge of the curtain to get a better look at the people below. He squints through the blurred glass, trying to make out faces in the downpour; once he does, his eyes widen, and he lets the fabric drop.

"It's not him," he says.

Sam stares. "What?"

"They're hunters," Dean spits, and crosses to the front door to yank it open. "Stay down, both of you," he adds over his shoulder before stepping out into the rain.

Three dozen guns start to lift. Dean's stays at his side, hanging loosely; he glares down at the group, then, one step at a time, moves toward the stairs near the end of their row. "You here to help, or are you just here to get your asses kicked?" he yells over the thunder.

One of them, a younger woman with red hair trailing out to a scraggly brown from the rain, steps forward, resting her own shotgun on her shoulder. "We've got a deal for you!" she shouts back.

"Yeah?" Dean's lip curls. "Funny, I'm not so much up on people making deals with me."

"We're not looking to kill anyone." _Tonight_ goes unsaid, but not unheard. A murmur of assent goes through the crowd, barely audible. "All we want's two things from you. You give us the list -- the full, real one -- and you mark out your brother's name on it as your kill."

The reply's instant, and furious: "No fucking way."

The woman settles her free hand on her hip. "You'd rather one of us do it instead?"

" _No one_ \-- " Dean swings his shotgun up, " -- _is killing my brother._ "

The sound of nearly forty guns ratcheting blends almost perfectly with the rain. Dean doesn't so much as flinch. "I don't even have the fucking list, anyway," he says, not too much calmer. "I'm not so big on killing a bunch of innocent people either."

The woman nods, as if she'd been expecting this. "If you don't have it," she calls, "then send out Dr. Suresh."

Dean snorts. "Okay, him I definitely don't have."

"You're lying. Five seconds to send him out."

"And you're all Goddamn insane."

"Four."

"I don't have him!"

"Three."

Dean cocks his own shotgun.

"Two."

" _Stop!_ " yells a voice from behind him.

Dean grits his teeth, seething with exasperation, and turns around. Mohinder stands, framed in the doorway, with both hands lifted in surrender. They're empty. "You stupid son of a _bitch,_ " Dean swears under his breath.

Another whisper snakes through the crowd; one by one, weapons start to lower. The woman takes another step closer and cranes her neck back to look up at Mohinder. "Doctor?" she calls.

"Yes." His voice is shaking. Mohinder closes his mouth, swallows, and tries again. "It's as you said. I'd also rather not have anyone die tonight."

Then, he steels himself, stepping over the threshold and into the rain. "But I don't have the list," he plunges on. "I destroyed it once I realized what it had done. Every true copy of it's been wiped out."

He can barely see, and hear even less over the rain; the clouds overhead thicken with startling speed. Still keeping his palm out, Mohinder brushes his sopping, dripping hair back. It's enough to see the eyes of the nearest hunters, lit like lightning flashes, infuriated; he raises his voice. "And even if I still had it, I would not share it with _any_ of you," he shouts. "It's useless for your work. These people you've been targeting..."

He trails off as, across the street, the fuzz of rain in the streetlights blocks them out entirely. The sudden density is more like fog or smoke, ribbons of it creeping down like fingers to close around the light. It's not a normal phenomenon, he realizes. It's not _natural._

And judging from the wide-eyed look Dean's giving it, it's something he's seen before.

"Get back inside," he urges. "Get back inside, it's _them_ \-- "

Unthinking, Mohinder obeys just as the cloud explodes outward in a hissing web to engulf the group. He hits the balcony hard enough to rattle his teeth, water splashing up around him; even as he keeps one hand on his head, half covering it -- as if he could actually protect himself from what's arrived -- he watches the lines of smoke seeking out the hunters like missiles to wrap around them. Staring in the face of the impossible, he has no choice but to drop back into detached cataloging, mind buzzing incomprehensibly: as the smoke curls around a full half of the hunters, their heads tip back into distorted screams. Eagerly, it plunges into their mouths, unwinding, pushing their jaws snake-wide as it forces itself down their throats.

It lasts no more than five seconds. The half infected by the smoke stumbles back; the half untouched by it presses together in a unified front, a wall of weapons at the ready.

Then the redhaired woman opens her eyes -- they've gone pitch black to the edges, glittering like beetle shells -- grins, and fires into the crowd.

The return crack of gunfire matches the thunder in a seamless, deafening roar, and in startled reflex, Mohinder claps his hands over his ears. A few hunters quickly abandon their guns and dive for knives, vials, iron implements he hasn't seen since he first walked into the Roadhouse all those weeks ago. The other hunters (the _possessed_ hunters, _dear God,_ he thinks numbly, _this is more than superstition_ ) fight like rabid animals, ferocious and delighted, striking with inhuman strength. One hunter goes to his knees, emptying his lungs of the smoke, only to have it leap to the mouth of the next hunter like a perverse kiss.

A hand seizes his collar and yanks him up. When Mohinder spins, adrenaline and fear dumped into his limbs, Dean just pulls harder as if to bodily drag him away. "We're getting out of here. _Sammy!_ " he roars into the motel room.

Sam's been wise enough to hang back, out of sight. Mohinder still sees the outrage on the younger Winchester's face in the sharpness of his voice, as clearly as if he's been standing next to them the whole time. "Dean, we can't just leave these people!" he yells. "There's a whole motel full of civilians -- "

"Hunters can take care of themselves and if they ain't paying attention to us right now? They sure as hell won't pay attention to them." All the same, Dean keeps his shotgun up as he releases Mohinder's collar. " _Now,_ Sam!"

Below, the back of a hunter's head explodes open in a quickly-erased spray of red. Mohinder pushes back the urge to retch, the equally strong one to question how _that_ is being able to take better care of themselves -- would he fare any better, if he tried to help? -- and stumbles after Dean, Sam unenthusiastic but not far behind.

They make it to the end of the balcony before Dean falls. It's not the fall of someone who's tripped, or, worse, been shot; it's more like a vicious shove to the gut, throwing him backward a pace before letting him crumple. Mohinder starts to open his mouth, half in shock and half to shout his name, before the same unseen force hits him like a wave and sends him tumbling.

With a screech, half of the balcony railing rips away and contorts in midair. Dean, coughing and already halfway back to his feet, doesn't have time to react before the metal slams against him, pinning his arms and torso to the wall. The shotgun drops, only to be caught by nothing before it hits the ground. The same nothing casually tosses it several feet away.

Mohinder, when he makes a futile grab for the weapon, finds he can't move. He gasps, hands splayed and straining.

The sharp pop of a heavy boot landing on the back of his hand, hard enough to wrench his knuckles out of joint, turns the the gasp into a yell.

"Hello, doctor," says a contemplative and nearly pleasant voice above him. Still reeling with pain, Mohinder looks up. Between his hair and the downpour, it takes time for the features to resolve: black hair, dark eyes, thick eyebrows, a thin sheen of stubble on his jaw. The man smiles, thin and malevolent and genuinely delighted, and doesn't change his conversational tone even as he digs his heel deeper into Mohinder's injured hand. "I can't say I expected to see you here."

Mohinder wheezes through clenched teeth, refusing to scream again. "If you still believe I'll give you the list," he begins to rasp.

The man chuckles. "Oh, I don't need the list," he says. The next words freeze Mohinder down to the marrow: "Your father already gave that to me."

The world dims to a singularity: the man's face, the gun too far away, the now muted hush of the rain. Six feet to his right, Dean yells something. Sam echoes it back, and the man --

"Sylar," whispers Mohinder.

\-- turns his head. He lifts his foot from Mohinder's hand.

The storm slams back into focus around him, and Mohinder lunges.

In one effortless gesture, Sylar flicks his wrist. The momentum changes: not gone, but misdirected, like a gyroscope struck off balance. He steps aside just enough to expose a gap in the broken balcony.

Everything registers in perfect clarity, down to the individual drops of falling rain, before Mohinder plummets over the edge.

He doesn't have time to think. The drop is impossibly far and impossibly fast. Yet by a fraction of a second, Mohinder's quicker: metal braces crisscross the underside of the balcony, a few jutting within reach, and he lashes out to grab one with both hands.

Instantly, it turns to one hand as something cracks in his injured knuckles. Mohinder's arm jerks straight with a pop, and trying to keep from crying out, he bites the inside of his cheek so hard that he tastes blood. The brace is too slick. There's no chance of climbing up, and already, his fingers start to slide along the metal.

He digs his nails in, craning his neck to try and judge the fall to the ground. More gunshots sound, above and below; beneath him, three more hunters fall.

As he twists to look up, he glimpses it, just barely. Ten feet in front of him and almost entirely hidden by shadow, a column runs from ground to balcony. If he can reach it --

Mohinder tightens his grip and starts to swing, small arcs at first, then larger ones as he chants silently in his head. _One. Two._

He shuts his eyes, mutters a quick prayer, and lets go on _three._

His torso smacks the balcony like a belly flop. Mohinder scrambles, just barely managing to wrap his arms around it in time. Rough wood drags splinters into his shirt and arms as he slides down, hardly any slower than freefall and yet just slow enough. He turns as soon as he thumps to a stop, pressed to the column to keep himself hidden.

Out in the rain, fallen guns gleam.

It takes a few steps for the ache of impact to fade from his feet. Awkward and clumsy, he creeps forward. When none of the hunters notice, it emboldens him enough to sprint out of his shelter into the rain.

The chaos of gunshots and thunder hides him well, but he still moves with the swift certainty of someone knowing he has one chance, and one chance alone. He ducks, falls, turns it to a clumsy half-roll that places him near the body of a dead hunter, her chest cavity ripped open like an autopsy and strings of guts pooling at her waist.

He can't afford to be squeamish. Mohinder pulls the semiautomatic from her hand and whirls, aiming at the balcony, at the man who killed his father and is now exchanging blows, as many seen as unseen, with Sam Winchester.

Dean's still pinned and screaming. For half a second, in the shadows of the balcony, Mohinder thinks he sees a flash of yellow like cat's eyes.

He takes aim, feels the space between heartbeats, and fires.

At the same moment he pulls the trigger, three bullets strike him in the chest.

As he falls, he sees the man called Sylar do the same; the yellow in the shadows vanishes, and soon, so does everything else.


	11. Chapter 11

It's too dark to see. Someone's whispering something, but Mohinder can't make out what.

He decides it must not be important, and sinks back into sleep.

* * *

When he next becomes aware, it's of nothing but pain. He makes a noise, trying to call for help; the same voice whispers again. This time, it's accompanied by a damp cloth to his forehead, blissfully cool.

 _You'd damn well better hang in there,_ he thinks he hears.

 _Hang in where?_ he tries to ask, but his lips will barely move.

The sound changes to a quiet, soothing rush, like a river, or a rainfall. He hears nothing else as he drifts off again.

* * *

 _\-- been a week -- done everything we can, he needs a Goddamn hospital --_

 _He's wanted by the FBI. You think if he goes in, they'll let him walk out again?_

 _All I'm saying is I ain't a doctor and he shouldn't have survived this to begin with. It's bad._

Survived. Survived?

Do they mean him?

He tries to touch his chest; it itches, feels damp, and there is still that awful ache that won't go away. Three fingers move. His arm's too heavy to lift the rest.

 _How you feeling, Doc?_

"Where," is all he gets out, in a hoarse croak of a whisper. The exertion's too much.

 _Hey, shh, we'll talk about all that later. Just get some rest, okay?_

He does.

* * *

When he opens his eyes, it's to a room he's never seen before, with Sam, Dean, and a third man hovering over him.

"Thought I'd never see that happen," says the third man, gruff. He scratches the back of his neck, just beneath the ragged baseball cap. "Welcome back, Doc."

Mohinder blinks. "Do I know you?" he asks, and while it's just as hoarse as before, it seems easier to speak this time, somehow.

"Nope." It's largely unconcerned, but not entirely unfriendly. "Name's Bobby. Heard a lot about you, don't think you can say the same about me."

"Unfortunately, no." He moistens his lips, gaze shifting to Dean, then Sam. There's a thickness to the words that he doesn't have the strength to erase when he says, "I suppose that's what you meant about knowing it when I see it."

"Yeah," answers Sam: sympathetic, almost a little sorrowful. "Pretty much exactly what I meant."

Gingerly, Mohinder moves his arms back enough to rest his elbows against the bed -- one hand's in a splint, unable to bear any weight -- and pushes himself up a handful of inches. The movement pulls at something in his chest; he hisses in pain, and almost as one, three sets of hands reach out to steady him.

"Whoa, easy there, Doc," says Dean, helping to lower him back to the bed. "You're not all the way healed up there yet."

"How long has it been?"

"Something like two and a half weeks," replies Bobby, mouth twisting. "Don't know who's the bigger moron, you for getting the FBI on your ass or them -- " he jerks a thumb toward the Winchesters, " -- for not letting me take you to a damn hospital."

"Two and a half -- " Mohinder's still stuck on that part, incredulous. To Sam and Dean, "But you're all right."

Dean gives him a lopsided grin. "Well, we have been doing this kind of thing a hell of a lot longer than you."

Mohinder starts to chuckle, but stops when he realizes it only makes the ache worse. "You say that like you're expecting me to do this again."

When none of them speak, Mohinder's crooked, half-hearted smile fades. He searches each of their faces, one by one.

"Do you really think you can go back to how it was before?" Sam points out. His tone hasn't altered very much; he doesn't look at Dean, or anyone else but Mohinder. "Just walk away, forget what you saw?"

 _I could try,_ he thinks, but the futility of the statement draws it back down his throat, balls it up tight into a constriction that makes it difficult to swallow. He looks away. It's Sam who leans forward, after a beat, to rest a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, man," he says, and Mohinder nods before closing his eyes.

* * *

A week later, he's able to walk with the aid of a cane Bobby finds in his shed. Further details come with his remaining strength: twenty hunters dead, forced exorcisms of the rest. With nowhere else to go, they'd treated Mohinder themselves as best they could before moving on to Bobby's one state over.

"Gabriel Gray's definitely dead, though," Sam adds over dinner one night, and elaborates at Mohinder's puzzled look, "Sylar. Prints matched him up to a watchmaker from New York who went missing about seven or eight months ago. They also linked him to at least ten murders across half as many states."

"Guy was a busy little bastard," Dean puts in from around a mouthful of hamburger.

"Gabriel. He was number seventeen," mumbles Mohinder, mostly to himself. "On the list -- I left a call for him, at his shop." He scoffs, quietly. "I had no idea."

Dean snickers. "No offense, Doc," he says, "but that's kinda turning into a trend."

Mohinder musters up a wan, humorless smile, but says nothing more.

* * *

"May I help you with those?" he says to Bobby the next day as the older man hefts a stack of books five tall from the bottom of a shelf.

Bobby stops mid-movement just long enough to direct a flat look at Mohinder. "When you've still got three holes in your chest and a half busted-up hand? Hell no," he snorts, heaving them into his arms and heading to a half-cleared table. "Tell you what you can do, get me that notepad up there," he points to an array of spiral-bound notebooks near the top of the shelves, "third one from the left, and start reading me what's on page twenty."

Mohinder obliges. By page twenty-one, he's absorbed enough by it that he's hardly noticed how Bobby's simply watching him, a quiet and oddly proud smile on his face. At page twenty-five, Bobby finally cuts him off, but adds, "Keep that for some bedtime reading if you want it."

To his surprise, Mohinder finds himself responding with a grin that's astonishingly genuine. "Thank you," he says.

"No problem." Bobby adjusts his cap. "Just put it back right when you're done with it."

Mohinder returns it two days later, after he's devoured the contents voraciously, and exchanges it for three others Bobby has waiting. His ignorance may have persisted longer than he'd like, but he's quite certain that he has no intention of remaining so.

* * *

Sam and Dean leave for a job not long after that. Mohinder doesn't go with them; instead, he elects to stay, and offers his own research to Bobby for potential collaboration.

Bobby puffs out a breath, considering. "Kinda like apples and oranges, but what the hell," he says, waving a hand toward an empty seat. "Let's see what you got."

They spend the next several days comparing their notes. Mohinder finds that it's much easier this time, now that he has a certain amount of background from the notebooks he'd been reading. Still, Bobby corrects him often, providing him with an even longer reading list at the end of each day; one volume at a time, he makes his way through the man's ragtag library, chronicling questions, drawing parallels, understanding the truth he'd dismissed so readily when he first met Ellen Harvelle.

"This is really what you do as well, then," he says one day, easing himself off of a high ladder with several books under his arm. "Every day. All of you."

Bobby grins. "Not all of us. Just the ones in the big leagues." He holds out a hand for the books. "Welcome aboard. Now gimme those and go get the rest of the references cross-checked."


	12. Epilogue

_Peter starts having the dreams again not long after Nathan's funeral._

 _The difference this time is that when he wakes up, the man is still there._

 _"You want to find who killed him, don't you?" the man asks, grinning in reply to Peter's red-rimmed glare. "I can show you. And I'll do a hell of a lot more than that for you, Pete."_

 _"I don't want your help," Peter snaps._

 _"You sure about that?" The man leans closer. "I mean,_ really _sure? Think about it. You're special. You're the most special one I've got now. Time to step up, kiddo. Revenge is all yours if you want it. All you gotta do is...open up."_

 _Peter looks down, hair swinging in front of his face. When he looks up again, his eyes are no less hardened, but the anger is gone, directed to a distant point._

 _The man grins broader, and his eyes glint yellow in the dim light._

 _"That's my boy," he whispers._


End file.
